Draft contribution to NRAO UC report on User Support



User Support

I. User Grants

  In his presentation to the UC, Chris Carilli briefly described the 
results of a report from the ALMA North American Science Advisory 
Committee (ANASAC) on the topic of a User Grants Program.  This report
can be found at:

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/docs/ANASAC2006_charge1_final.pdf

  In summary, the report recommends that NSF funding be allocated
for successful ALMA programs with US investigators, that the 
estimated necessary amount of funds is about 6M$/year, and that
the allocations be based on amount of observing time, program 
complexity and need.

  In our discussions in Charlottesville, the UC was unanimous in
the recognition that when ALMA comes on-line that this represents
an entirely new facility which will require substantial new support 
to the observing community in order to take advantage of its
awesome new capabilities.

  After reading the ANASAC report, all but one of the US members
of the UC endorsed the report in full.  There was some discussion 
concerning the propriety of non-US members discussing the 
disbursement of NSF funds which resulted in the above reported
number restricted to US members (although all members participated
in the discussion).

  A very real concern of the UC is that new NSF funding for ALMA will
decrease the opportunities for support for observing on NRAO's other
facilities, which, like ALMA, represent state-of-the-art capabilities
in their respective observing windows.

II. Communication

  The UC believes the NRAO Newsletter to be a valuable and effective
means of communicating between the NRAO and its user community.

   Following Claire Chandler's report on the VLA, there was some 
discussion concerning the "best" way to communicate technical details
and updates to observers.  The consensus view was that it is very 
important to have up-to-date websites with all of the necessary 
information, but that in the cases of important events or changes
that observers should receive specific, single topic, e-mails.  The 
concern expressed by the NRAO regarding flooding of e-mail boxes was 
not one shared by the UC (at least not at the current rate of NRAO
e-mail).  Basically, the UC felt that there is no single best way to 
communicate to users, and that this justifies multiple attempts
at communication for important items.  

  Perhaps the definition of an important item would be anything that
could potentially result in flawed observe files.  One possibly 
effective remedy would be e-mails from the operators (responding to
the reception of observe files) warning users about changes needed 
to observe files because of VLA/EVLA transition concerns.

III. Staffing/Support

  The UC would benefit from knowing more about NRAO's plan for moving 
from a single-telescope model to a "One Observatory" model. 

  The UC noted that the NRAO appears to be understaffed in many of 
its critical needs. There appears to be a contradiction between the 
NSF Senior Review recommendations for trimming costs (staff) and the 
need for user support & development for new instrumentation.

  In his presentation, Dale Frail presented the possibility for 
countering the lack of sufficient staff by encouraging Jansky Fellows 
to be based at NRAO during the time that EVLA and ALMA begin 
operations. In principle, this is a win-win situation in that the
Jansky Fellow enjoys the unique opportunity to be involved with the
commissioning of a new facility and the NRAO benefits from these 
Fellows' expertise with these facilities.

  The Users Committee feels strongly that it is not a good idea to 
explicitly encourage Jansky Fellows to base themselves at an NRAO 
site.  The UC felt that the explicit connection of the Jansky 
Fellow program to the commissioning phase of new facilities would
strongly impact the perception of the independence of the Jansky
Fellows.  The success of the Jansky program comes, in part, from the 
independence of its Fellows, and this independence in turn attracts 
the best applicants in subsequent cycles.  Hopefully future Jansky
Fellow applicants will recognize the great opportunity to be involved
in the commissioning phases of the EVLA and ALMA.  However, the 
possibility to increase the number of NRAO fellows, targeted toward
commissioning needs, even at the expense of the number of "traveling" 
Jansky fellows was a possibility that the UC found acceptable.


Original Notes:


User Support (Evan*,Bryan, )

I. User Grants - consensus statement ($6 M needed to be added to the NSF budget
to support a user grant program)

- tied to the success of ALMA

- contact ANASAC (Jonathan Williams) about their statement regarding User
Grants (and any interesting discussions that committee had)

- concern that EVLA users will be at a disadvantage; NRAO 
needs to hear that users of EVLA will want support for their programs also 

II. Communication

- we like the newsletter.

- web page important but send atomized emails alerting users to important changes.

- operator email should send warnings to evla users about changes needed 
to observe files during transition -- there should not be many error-filled 
observe files!

III. Staffing/Support? NRAO appears to be understaffed in many of its 
critical needs. Some perceived contradiction between NSF Senior 
Review recommendations for trimming costs (staff) and the need for 
user support & development for new instrumentation - UC would benefit 
from knowing more about NRAO's plan for moving from a single-telescope
model to a "One Observatory" model. 

-Jy postdocs should remain independent (bias towards instrumentalists or 
local if desired)

-increase NRAO postdoc program